Area 51
by OverlyDramatic
Summary: Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane witnesses a superhuman rescue, and all she can think about is putting Metropolis's secret hero on page 1. But when her investigation leads the government to Clark Kent's doorstep, Lois begins to realize how much is at stake
1. Finding the Scoop

Yes, this is what derailed me from A Fellow Cape. Yes, I plan on finishing that eventually. But for now, here's this. It's only going to be 3 chapters (4 if I absolutely must spill over), but there's a possibility for follow-up stories. After I finish my other chapter fic. :) Anyway, I've been working on this, off and on, since April, so I'm glad I can finally get it out there. It's AU, in case you didn't notice. Please enjoy!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville, or Superman, or Lois Lane, or aliens. I may own the Daily Planet building, but keep it hush hush, alright?**

I.

The low, metallic click was surprisingly sharp against the looming quiet of uptown Metropolis. It echoed in the silence, drifting up from the darkened alley beneath her. Lois halted her efforts to jar open the window, mentally abandoning her useless lead on the Mayor's alleged concubine, and listened intently. A thump sounded below her, down one of the few alleys in Metropolis's townhouse district. Intrigued, Lois peered over the edge of the fire escape and squinted into the darkness. As her eyes adjusted, dark figures solidified in the alley below.

A half-muffled shriek ricocheted across the brick walls, and Lois nearly jumped out of her skin. Her heart began pounding wildly as she realized that the situation was, at best, a mugging and at worst . . . .

Lois's mind scrambled for a way down, ready to fight off the two hulking men that were becoming more visible by the second. It had taken her a good fifteen minutes to climb the broken ladder on the fire escape, but there had to be someway to get to those thugs. The slighter one had both arms wrapped around a thrashing, crying little girl, one hand clamped securely over her mouth. The other man was hovering menacingly over an unconscious teenager.

Anger flashed across Lois's face, and in a split second she had decided to simply vault off the platform. A mugging was one thing, but attacking two young girls in an alley? These scumbags were going down.

Then, suddenly, they _were_ down.

Lois tripped to a stop, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her. The same men who, two seconds ago, had been terrorizing those girls were now writhing on the ground. But Lois didn't have a clue how they got there.

Then, all of a sudden, they were gone. Lois's eyes nearly popped out of her head as she stared dumbly at the two girls; the older still unconscious, the other standing on wobbly legs, stunned into silence. Lois had the brief thought that she should still do something, help them somehow, but she couldn't make herself move.

And then another towering man had arrived out of nowhere, and Lois was moving again, assessing the distance to the ground and how much it would hurt if she cushioned her fall on the pile of unassembled cardboard boxes to her left and twenty feet down.

"Are you okay?"

His voice was gentler than Lois expected—comforting—and though her mind was screaming at her to start moving, to save that poor little girl, her instincts kept her still.

The kid barely reached his hip, and he knelt down to speak to her. She took one look at the large man in front of her and burst into tears.

"Hey, hey, you're alright," he soothed, looking around for something to console her. Lois crept forward, peering over the rail, to follow his line of sight to a small, dirty teddy bear across the alley. In a blink, he was handing it to the girl.

She eyed it dubiously for only a moment before snatching it from his grasp and clutching the animal tightly against her chest.

"Are you alright?" he asked again, crouching even lower, as if by reducing his mass he might lessen the threat the girl perceived.

"S-sissy," her voice was as wobbly as her legs, and Lois had a flash of a three-year-old Lucy, crying for their mother after she was gone. The kid was going to break down at any moment.

The man glanced over to trace the contours of the unconscious teenager's frame, and in the sudden illumination of the full moon, Lois got a good look at his face. He was younger than she imagined, his features attractive and kind. Only the shadows playing across his jaw lent the least air of menace to his frame.

"Your sister's going to be fine," he assured the little girl. She sniffled, clutching the teddy bear closer. "I'm going to take her to the hospital, okay? Do you want to come?"

The words brought Lois back to herself, and though everything in her wanted to trust this man, she knew she couldn't. Lois dug through her purse for her phone, hoping the cops would have time to get there before this man took off with those children.

The man lifted the teenager with one arm, holding out the other for the dirt-streaked girl. As she climbed tentatively into his arms, Lois found her voice.

"Hey! Buddy! Drop those kids and-"

He looked up, startled, and met her eyes. Lois's finger moved reflexively, snapping a picture on her phone. Then a rush of wind rocked the alley, and Lois was left looking at an empty street.

She blinked, forcing herself from her blank stupor to dial her contact at the hospital. Her eyes were still wide when she heard the ringing stop.

"Hey, Brad-" she began hastily.

"Kinda busy right now, Lane," he deflected before she could begin.

"I just need to know if-"

"Look, two girls just showed up out of nowhere. Literally, just appeared in the middle of the E.R. They don't look too bad, but no one has a clue how they got here. You want the scoop, you're gonna have to call back, okay?"

"Sure," Lois murmured half-heartedly, hanging up the phone. Her heart rate picked up as a smile crept across her face. She clicked back to the dark photo, the thrill of a new story thrumming in her veins. There was a Good Samaritan in Metropolis, and she had the proof. Now all she needed was the story.

Her research had been surprisingly easy. Lois had expected to spend weeks sniffing out scraps of information, but one look at the Daily Planet's database and her story was half done. Fires, muggings, even stings gone south were littered with mentions of unexplainable salvation. Of course, she couldn't attribute them all to the handsome stranger, but enough details synced with her own experience to give her quite a bit to go on.

What Lois couldn't believe was just how many of these occurrences people brushed off. Accounts ranged from "I must have passed out" to "I guess there's an angel watching out for me," but not a single person had considered the possibility that a physical person had actually saved them.

Granted, superpowers were supposed to be comic book myths, but Lois had seen firsthand that that particular fiction was actually fact.

The powers that be hadn't taken these encounters quite so lightly. After sweet-talking a government techie into opening a few files, Lois had found a large-scale and largely uninformed alert on the faceless savior. The few incident reports detailed unwarranted access to high security locations and several unexplainable halts to high risk experiments. The experiments themselves were blocked out, and her little friend wouldn't let her near anyone with enough pull to see the uncorrupted file.

Lois did manage to snag a copy of the blurry photo from their security cameras, which she spent hours examining along with the computer-enhanced picture from her phone.

Another week of roaming the streets, and a bitter shop owner had dropped the name "Smallville, Kansas" as the home of all unexplained phenomena. It wasn't much, but it was also only a few hours away. Lois was on the road by noon.

"_Small_ville is right," she muttered as she drove into town, staring disbelievingly at the single coffee shop. "More like _Nowhere's_ville."

Though she was only in town for research, she pulled out her file to stare at a glossy picture, imprinting his face on her brain. Not only did he have a chiseled jaw and warm blue eyes, he was positively huge. If someone had glimpsed this guy, she was sure to find out.

Armed with the printed image, the blurry shot from the government facility, and a trove of questions, Lois dove into an empty parking space and emerged from her car, already scanning the sidewalks for potential sources. For such a down-home town, the streets were next to empty. Where could everyone be in the middle of the day?

"You look lost, Missy," a weathered voice behind her noted. The jingling of a shop bell punctuated the statement.

Lois whirled, and forced her face smoothly professional when she caught sight of him. He was wearing _plaid_ of all things, and _coveralls_. And even the welcoming face didn't erase all that dirt. Still, he looked nice enough, hovering inside the door of—she snuck a peek at the flaking sign above his head—Hal's Hardware.

Wasting no time, Lois flashed her best smile and extended one hand. "Lois Lane, Daily Planet," she greeted as he slowly switched a plastic bag from his right hand to his left and, even more slowly, shook her hand. It was rough and gritty. Clearly, he'd been working.

One grey eyebrow rose, and Lois saw his eyes dim. Apparently, she wasn't the first reporter he'd come across. "Ben," he informed her simply.

"So, Ben," she paused to look around, hoping to make him more comfortable. These country yokels were all about manners. "Is Smallville always a ghost town, or is today special?"

He cleared his throat before responding, "We do have to work, Ma'am. It's not quitting time for another two hours. Later," he added, "if you're running a farm."

Lois sidled closer, eyes flickering from the storefront to his mud-streaked clothes. "Is that what you do, Ben? Run a farm?"

He nodded, eyeing her suspiciously. With a sigh, Lois dropped the act.

"Okay, here's the deal," she crossed her arms, giving him her best no-nonsense stare. "I'm looking for a runner, too, but I doubt I'll find this one on a farm. How much do you know about superpowers?"

Rather than looking surprised, as she half-expected, Ben simply nodded. "That's what I thought," he told her, a smile briefly tugging his mouth upwards. He turned to walk down the sidewalk, gesturing her to follow. "We don't see many reporters around here, but when we do they always want to know about the meteors."

"Meteors?" Lois wondered, scribbling it into her notebook.

This time, Ben did look surprised. "You haven't done your homework, have you?"

"Of course I have!" Lois scoffed. Realizing affronted remarks probably weren't the way to go, she amended, "I just had a more specific subject."

"Well, whoever your subject is, they were probably infected by the meteors. Nasty business, if you ask me."

"Care to explain?" she asked, wondering what on earth a hunk of space rock had to do with her investigation.

"They mess people up," he confided, though he spoke as though it were common knowledge. "Once the meteors hit—before your time, honey," he interjected, picking up on her confusion, "but once they hit weird things started happening. People got . . . strange. Went cuckoo. And now we've got reporters that like to visit our little town for their extra credit projects."

"Well, there's not much else here, is there, Farmer Ben?" Lois asked wryly, turning to watch two boot-clad women disappear into a flower shop. She wondered if they'd even _heard_ of Jimmy Choo.

He shrugged. "We like it that way."

"Okay, so the meteors change people," Lois surmised, doing her best not to roll her eyes. His story sounded as far-fetched as any small town superstition, but UFO stories might be all she had to go on. She was pretty much chasing a myth herself. It wouldn't do to dismiss the farmer's stories without at least _attempting_ to verify them. "Then what?"

"Most of 'em go crazy," he said plainly, suddenly veering into the street with barely a glance in either direction. Lois wondered briefly if being hit by a car even hurt at three mile per hour.

"Are there any others?" she asked, steering the conversation back to her original topic. "Maybe some that help? That save people?"

Ben furrowed his brows, looking her up and down. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm a reporter," she told him, her go-to answer when someone asked a personal question. She was there to get someone else's life story, not share her own. Her father had taught her that distinction before her journalism career had even started.

The grey-haired famer pursed his lips, abruptly turning toward a beaten up truck. "A few," he admitted, swinging his bag into the bed. "But some of our _down home values_," he flashed her a look, as if he knew she was judging the little town and its backwards thinking, "were bound to stick."

"Have you encountered them personally?" she asked, tamping down her excitement. Nothing yet had told her he was alluding to _her_ superhero. She couldn't help but encourage, "Maybe someone who moves faster than sound?"

His eyes warmed. "You've had a strange encounter, haven't you, Ma'am?" She pressed her lips, refusing to answer, and he grinned. "Sure. Everyone's experienced a few mysterious saves. Doesn't mean we can tell you who it is," he gave her a pointed look, "Or _would_ if we knew."

"There must be someone _somewhere_ in this town who may have seen something," she countered. "If people are being saved then there have to be survivors. And even if it's just hearsay, any witnesses at all would be . . . ."

But Ben was shaking his head, and Lois stopped with a huff.

She drummed her tongue inside her mouth, sifting through the questions in her head. She got the sense was losing him, and though half his stories sounded like bull, there was just enough in them to make Lois hopeful.

The farmer pulled open the door to his truck, tipping an imaginary hat. "If you're all done, why don't you head on back to the city and write up your story. Those city editors won't look too deep."

Lois blinked, affronted at the insinuation. "The Daily Planet is the number one publication in the _world_," she informed him hotly.

He shook his head. "And Smallville is the most forgotten town on the planet," he informed her, sliding into the cab.

"Wait!" Lois called, scrambling over to his open window to shove a photograph under his nose. If only he would admit to _seeing_ the blurry rescuer, she'd know she was onto something. Thank goodness for that government techie; her little phone camera would never have captured the blurry streak of pixels she was hoping the farmer would recognize. "Have you seen this man?" she asked, a little breathless.

Ben blinked down at the photo, then looked up at her, bewildered.

"I saw him in Metropolis," she finally admitted, hoping it would make him trust her, at least a little.

"Clark? Sure," he said warily, thrown by the apparent shift in tack. Lois felt a little confused herself as he handed back the photo. "But I doubt he'll be able to help you. Even if he _did_ see your superhero, he'll keep it to himself."

Lois looked down, and realized she'd handed the gentleman the wrong picture. This wasn't the mysterious streak she was hoping Ben had, at some point, seen whirlwind by. Staring up at her were the dark, strong features of the mystery hero. Suddenly her ears were roaring so loudly she barely heard the farmer finish his remark.

"The Kents always were quiet folk."

Lois watched Ben Hubbard—she'd wrangled his last name from him during the drive—disappear in his blue Chevy, leaving a cloud of dust swirling around her. The sudden lead still had her a little stunned, and the potential for this story had her nearly giddy in anticipation. If she played her cards right, she'd have a Pulitzer in her hands in no time.

Gripping her file, Lois squared her shoulders and strode past the cheery mailbox, under the hand-carved sign—"_Kent Farm." Seriously, is anybody around here remotely original?—_and down the long dirt driveway.

The house was warm and picturesque, and Lois felt a little intimidated as she climbed the porch steps. Would she be greeted by the scent of cookies and a little wife in a little skirt? Or was this some ancestral home, housing several generations who worked together as a loving family unit?

Both options curled her stomach; she had never understood the whole family concept. She found herself praying he was alone as she rapped hard on the door.

Lois waited impatiently for several seconds, then knocked again.

"Hello," she called, leaning sideways to peer into a window. The living room looked neat and comfortable, but currently held no bulky farmboys. "Anybody home?" she wondered loudly, doing her best to peer up the stairs.

The neighbor had been positive this Clark character would be here, but the house seemed pretty vacant to her. Shrugging, Lois jogged down the stairs and around the edge of the farmhouse.

There was no way she was touching the endless grass and fences full of cows, so she trudged toward the barn and peered inside. It was dimly lit, and her eyes started to water the second the dusty air hit them.

"Yech," Lois complained to herself, fighting back a sneeze. "Why, of all places, am I in a barn right now?"

"Looking for me, I'd guess," a deep voice drifted from a stall on her right, and Lois started. "Unless you've come to visit Krypto." With a low chuckle, he rounded the wooden wall and, at the sight of her, came to a sudden stop.

For a moment, Lois could do nothing but stare. Of course, during the ride with Farmer Ben she'd come to terms with the fact that the shadowy savior from the alley might, in fact, live on a farm. He could, possibly, even be a farm boy. Still, she wasn't quite prepared for the visual.

His wavy hair was tangled and sprinkled with hay. A streak of dust had smeared itself across his nose. His faded jeans brushed the top of dirty boots, and his white t-shirt sported specks of what she hoped was mud. His large hands were jammed into worn gloves that were nearly threadbare with use. And behind him, slung over a low beam, was a _plaid shirt_.

She didn't know whether she was more appalled or turned on. And _that_ appalled her.

"You're-" he breathed, recognition scattering across his features, just as she stepped forward, regaining her usual bravado.

"Lois Lane," she introduced, sticking out a hand and—with a glance and a wrinkled nose in the direction of his dirty gloves—retracting it before he could touch her. "Daily Planet," she added, hoping he hadn't noticed.

She could almost see the knot work its way through his throat. Deliberately, he turned and leaned his pitchfork against the stall. Then he removed his gloves, finger by finger, and laid them across a bale of hay.

He was stalling. Building his defenses.

She waited until he faced her again—a feat of patience she was surprised she managed—before inquiring casually, "Clark Kent, I presume?"

"How do you know that?" he demanded, throat raspy. Lois blinked at his tone and shrugged.

"Your neighbor, Ben Hubbard. He gave me a ride from town." A thought hit her suddenly, and she frowned. "Hey, I left my car on Main Street. Think you can white tornado me into town later?"

If she'd thought he looked wary before, now he went positively rigid. "'White tornado?'" he quoted, too much scoff in his tone.

Tamping down the urge to roll her eyes—his acting skills frankly sucked—Lois felt an unexpected wave of compassion. This guy had compromised his identity to do a good deed, and here she was accosting him in his barn.

_Nice one, Lane_, she chastised herself. Sometimes, she let her fervor for the truth get in the way of her people skills.

She exhaled heavily, and tried again.

"Look," she said softly, moving towards him. "I saw you save those girls the other night. And I'm pretty sure you know I saw you," she interjected as he opened his mouth to argue. "I'm not here to turn you over to anybody. Because, honestly?" she took a deep breath and stopped an arm's length from him. Slowly, she raised her eyes to his and, though she didn't know why, she admitted, "I think it's kind of amazing."

He stared at her, and they were both transfixed. Impossibly, as the moments melded in their gazes, Lois felt her heart beating more rapidly. Panic flared.

_You're here for a story, Lane_, she reminded herself firmly. _It doesn't matter if he looks like a Greek god and saves small girls on the weekends._

"You can't tell anyone," he breathed—begged—and it was so different from the soothing, controlled tone Lois had been replaying for days that she blinked. He reached out a hand, hesitated, and brushed his fingers across her shoulder, where her skin tingled pleasantly. She shrugged off the feeling, though she did nothing about his hand.

"Are you kidding?" she asked, truly surprised. "You could be famous! This story could make my-" suddenly, her career didn't seem so important, "-your-" she didn't know what it would do for him, exactly. She halted, searching for the words. "You'd be a hero," she told him earnestly. "You could help so many people."

Instead of convincing him, as she'd half-expected, her little speech had planted near panic in his eyes. His rough palm tightened on her shoulder, seeming to encase the whole space from neck to arm.

It was intimidating. It was riveting.

"_You can't tell anyone_," he insisted, pleading and forceful in a way that made Lois's pulse skip. "_Please_," he added earnestly, looking straight into her eyes.

"Okay."

The word hung in the air, and it wasn't until he sagged in relief that Lois realized she'd said it. She opened her mouth to take it back, to tell him she _needed_ to write the story, he _needed_ it written, but he breathed, "thank you," and she just couldn't do it.

Lois blinked, gathering herself. Now that her whole plan was out the window, she didn't quite know what to do with herself. They stood there, not speaking, not moving, bodies close and eyes darting, until the silence was too much for her.

"That doesn't mean I'm leaving you alone," she warned, impulsively sitting on the nearest bale of hay. The distance from him eased the thrumming tension in her muscles. It was definitely worth the pokey straw needling her ass. "I saw you singlehandedly rescue two kids from the Jack-the-Ripper tag-team—_and_ rush the girls to the hospital—in less than two minutes," he winced as she laid it all out there, but didn't argue. "As you can imagine," Lois smiled and bit her lip, impishly letting any vestiges of professionalism disintegrate, "I have a few questions."

He considered her closely, though Lois had no idea what he was looking for. She tried not to squirm as his deep blue eyes raked over her face and settled on her eyes. After a moment he nodded his dark head, spilling wisps of hay into the air, and grabbed his pitchfork.

"Fire away," he allowed, flashing her a wry smile and spearing the sharp prongs into the bale next to her. She jumped, shot him a dirty look, and brushed off the incident as she settled back, pestering him with question after question as he finished his morning work.

**/**

So that's part one. Stay tuned for more! And please let me know what you think. Comments really keep me motivated and happy, but they also ground me as far as what the readers want. So help me help you! Haha.


	2. Discovering the Truth

Enjoy part 2!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**II.**

Lois squirmed under heavy covers, feeling smothered. She'd been uncomfortable in her own skin lately, ever since she'd started seeing Clark Kent.

Well, not _seeing_ seeing. Just seeing. And hoping, just a little. She could admit that to herself.

But this creeping feeling hadn't left her alone since the first day she'd walked into his barn, nearly three weeks ago. She didn't know why, exactly, but she had a terrible sense that she'd done something . . . wrong. Left something undone. And she _hated_ the feeling.

Flipping around on the mattress, Lois swung her torso over the edge to peer under the bed. Her hair spilled out onto the floorboards, blocking the moonlight, but her fingers knew exactly which bed support to shift so she could grab her research and climb back onto the sheets.

She'd officially given up the story—though she still hoped, maybe naively, to change Clark's mind—but the allure of a good mystery was too much for her to ignore. She appreciated that Clark was opening up to her, but couldn't resist a little digging on her own. What she'd found was fascinating.

It started with a little symbol scrawled on a scrap of paper in Clark's loft—his Fortress of Solitude, she joked, though really, the whole farm was pretty lonely. He seemed to view his powers as a curse, oddly enough, and since his parents' deaths he'd resigned himself to the companionship of his ridiculously named dog.

Lois could relate to the alienation, if not his reason for remaining alone. Oddly, she felt pleased that her company, unwarranted though it was, could give him some relief. No one deserved to be lonely, especially when the reasons were beyond their control. And never someone as warm and welcoming as Clark.

Lois pictured Clark's heart-fluttering smile and couldn't help but smile herself. He had been growing more comfortable every day, and his smile showed it. It wasn't just that he trusted her more—though Lois was certainly happy that he did. But Lois thought he seemed more at ease with himself. Like having someone know about him, accept him as he was, allowed him to accept himself.

Lois glanced toward her closet, smile slipping away. Just because he was less burdened didn't mean he'd told her everything. She had absentmindedly pocketed the slip of she'd found in his barn, but it wasn't until later that she understood just how bizarre it was. It wasn't just a doodle, but . . . well, a _word_ almost. Arranged purposefully, in a line with other, half-torn scratches—more symbols.

It was driving Lois crazy. She didn't expect him to spill his guts. After all, he didn't know her yet. Not really. She wanted him to open up in his own time. She just wished that _his _time wasn't twice as long as _hers_.

So she'd snooped. Not a lot. She'd respected him from the start, and her admiration grew with every conversation. Still, her reporter's instincts had gotten the best of her, and last week she'd filched a notebook from an old chest in the barn.

Honestly, her guilt was stopping her from examining it. The pages were burning a hole in her closet, but she kept them far from the stack of information Clark had confided. Those were the notes she read every night, hoping to piece together the mystery that was her super powered farm boy.

Those were the ones she read now, antsy for reasons that had nothing to do with their quasi-lunch date at the farm in—she glanced at the clock—oh, eleven hours and ten minutes.

There had to be something she was missing. Lois just couldn't understand how someone so amazing, so willing to save whoever needed it, had managed to fly under the radar for so many years.

A hollow pounding broke the silence, originating from the dark curtain in the corner of her bedroom. Lois froze, heart thudding. There was no way someone was out there—not eleven stories up—but the noise was too distinct, too calculated to be anything but a person. It sounded almost like _knocking_, but that was even more absurd than the thought of a burglar managing to climb to her balcony.

Swiftly, Lois shoved the papers under the bed, stuffed her feet into her bunny slippers, and yanked the lamp plug from the wall. She tested the weight of the stainless steel lamp as she crept slowly toward her window. She was pretty sure she could do some damage.

Whipping back the curtain, Lois was greeted with the absolute last sight she'd expected to see at 1am: Clark Kent, standing sheepishly on her balcony, with a smile on his face and a paper bag under his arm.

"How the hell did you get up here?" Lois hissed, pulling the door open to let him in.

"I told you I could fly," Clark explained easily, slipping through the opening in the glass. He dropped the bag on her dresser and turned to face her. In the moonlight, Lois saw his cheeks darken. "I . . . uh . . . sorry," Clark mumbled, glancing down. "I should have realized you were sleeping. I just . . . uh-"

Lois's fingertips brushed the edge of her nightgown, which she suddenly realized was much higher than modesty allowed. With a blush of her own, she ripped her robe from the chair and tied it tightly around herself.

"No problem," Lois dismissed, sounding calmer than she felt. "I was having trouble turning my brain off, anyway." He looked dubious, and a little guilty, so she reassured, "Really, it's . . . a _welcome_ distraction." Uncomfortable with the amount of flirtatiousness creeping into her tone, Lois diverted, "what's in the bag?"

"Oh, uh, Chinese," he shrugged. "I was in Metropolis and . . ." his mouth twisted, and Lois saw loneliness shade his face, ". . . didn't want to head back to the farm. I thought you might want some food," he paused, then added, as if to entice her, "and a tip on a robbery that happened ten minutes ago."

Lois blinked up at him, actually a little touched. She wasn't used to people looking out for her, even for simple take-out and an easy scoop.

"We're not good enough friends for this, are we?" he sighed, gesturing to the dark room around them. "I'm sorry. I guess I was thinking about seeing you and I got carried away. I can go if-"

"Clark," Lois broke in, giving the amused smile free reign on her face. "You've just apologized more in five minutes than I think you have the whole three weeks I've known you. Relax." He did, and Lois felt more at ease than ever. "Now, I have to wonder," she snagged the bag from her dresser, mouth watering at the scent of food as she led Clark to the kitchenette. Pulling bags and boxes from the giant paper bag, Lois quirked an eyebrow at Clark. "How exactly did you find my apartment?"

"I, uh," he began, still hesitant. Lois fixed him with another stare, and the sheepish air dissolved. "I listened to your heartbeat," he admitted.

Lois dropped the egg rolls. "Run that by me again?" she said, ignoring the greasy treats as they scattered across her floor.

"I told you I have good hearing-" he began.

"I didn't know it was that good!" she interjected.

"-and we've been spending a lot of time together," he finished, ignoring the interruption. "It was actually pretty easy to pick it out. I thought I might have to search for it."

"Wait, wait," Lois motioned with her hands for him to stop. "You're telling me you listened to every heartbeat in Metropolis, and you picked out mine, individually, just because we spent a few days hanging out on your farm?"

"Pretty much," he shrugged.

Lois stared at him, flabbergasted. "That's . . . well . . ." her forehead wrinkled as she sought a proper description, "a potential invasion of privacy, I have to admit, but also . . . wow, that's cool," she finished, shaking away the shock.

He smiled brightly, as he tended to do whenever Lois accepted some new quirk about him.

"Now how about some authentic Chinese?" he asked, sliding onto a barstool and pulling a paper box towards him.

"I thought you said you were in Metropolis?" Lois asked suspiciously, sitting down beside him and grabbing several containers of food.

"I was," Clark told her, taking a bite of Lo Mien. Lois watched his jaw work the food, unable to stop herself. He swallowed and finished, "but I may have taken a detour."

"To China?" Lois guessed, no longer surprised. Clark laughed, and she couldn't help but join him. Boy, did he have a strange life.

It was mid-morning and Lois sat in her car, parked halfway up the Kent Farm's long dirt driveway. She fingered the pages of Clark's notebook. After Clark had left, the guilt of taking it had only intensified. She kept imagining him looking for it, the fear that would mar his features when he couldn't find it, how he'd have no idea who might have it or why. Lois simply couldn't stomach it. So she'd grabbed the stupid thing from her closet shelf and brought it with her. She told herself she could slip it back where she got it, burying her guilt with Clark none the wiser. But Lois knew herself better. As close as she'd gotten to Clark these weeks, she'd never be satisfied unless she'd apologized for what she'd done.

Which was why she was sitting in her car, working up the nerve to pull up to the house. Apologies were never her thing. In fact, she avoided them whenever possible. And, since her closest personal friendship had been, to this point, with her editor, saying sorry wasn't something she really had to do.

She only hoped that Clark wouldn't take her theft as a betrayal. _She_ knew the remorse she felt, but how could he? After all those years of secrecy, trust was surely a precious commodity.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Lois stepped out of her car. The long walk would prepare her better than driving would.

Absently tracing the sole symbol on the notebook's cover—a swooping 'S' encased in a flat-topped diamond—Lois tried to ignore the difficult conversation ahead. Instead, she pictured the man she was meeting. What might the day have been, if she weren't about to ruin it?

Clark had probably made sandwiches—a picnic, maybe. He had an unnatural affinity for the outdoors. Then again, he was also pretty handy in the kitchen. Maybe he'd cooked up something special, a proper lunch at the table.

She was nearly positive she'd be greeted with flowers. He'd never actually given her a bundle, but it seemed that the amount of fresh flowers on display grew every time she visited. She tried not to read too much into it, but at the end of the day Clark was a small town gentleman. She had to admit, she was kind of giddy at the thought of him courting her.

"Courting," Lois snorted at herself, rolling her eyes. What was she thinking, that courting seemed like an appealing concept?

A warm, crooked smile flashed across her mind's eye, and she had to admit she knew exactly what she was thinking. She was thinking that Clark Kent was everything that had never appealed to her, but somehow seemed to be exactly what she wanted.

Arriving at the now-familiar farmhouse, Lois slowly climbed the creaky front stairs and stepped inside the foyer.

"Clark?" she called, anticipation curling in her ribcage despite the guilty nerves twisting her gut.

Silence greeted her. Frowning, Lois moved back to the door, jerking to a halt before she could open it.

"The guy's got super hearing, Lane," Lois rolled her eyes at herself. Taking a drawn out breath, Lois raised her voice to call, "Clark?" There was still no reply, and Lois felt her jitters start to leech from her body. "You know, I'm much prettier than the cows," she called, smiling slightly as she moved to the couch. Plopping onto the plush cushions, Lois allowed the homey feeling to wash over her. "Smell better, too," she added at her normal tone, knowing he could hear her.

Contenting herself with waiting—if only because it delayed the inevitable apology—Lois reached for the remote. Her hand hit the smooth wooden table, and she frowned.

"Clark doesn't even watch TV," she muttered to herself, eyebrows furrowing.

She slid onto the floor, peering under the table. Seeing a flash of black, she groped until her fingers found the unexpectedly sharp mass of plastic.

"What the hell?" Lois murmured, examining the broken bits. Blinking away her confusion, she shrugged, dumping the useless remote on the table. Maybe Clark had knocked it over. The man could bench press an airplane; it was no stretch that a careless gesture might have demolished a scrap of plastic.

Standing to turn on the television the old fashioned way, Lois caught sight of the window to the left of the screen, which had cracked from top to bottom. Unease growing, she crept closer, touching the small, round hole with one fingertip. It looked like a bullet hole.

"Clark?" Lois called again, suddenly worried.

She knew nothing could hurt him. She _knew_ that. But that knowledge didn't make the growing fear dissipate.

"Stop overreacting, Lane," she ordered herself, taking a steadying breath. There could be a million things to have cracked the glass. A ricochet rock. Krypto's exuberant playing. A very large bird.

Whirling, Lois hurried to the kitchen, hoping to find a fresh plate of sandwiches. But finding them didn't make her feel any better.

The kitchen was a disaster. Plates lay shattered in the sink, glasses were broken on the counter; pieces of both lay fallen on the floor. One barstool was upended, the other was nothing more than splinters. Bullet holes lined the walls, the cabinets, even the oven. And the slimy innards of two ham sandwiches lay scattered across the floor.

"They can't hurt him," she chanted to herself, fighting back a desperate gasp. "They _can't_."

_But what if they can?_ Her thoughts betrayed her.

She'd only known him a few short weeks. She didn't know all his secrets. What if there was a way to hurt him? What if they, whoever they were, had found a weakness? What if they'd exploited it?

Lois scanned the kitchen, eyes searching for a clue. Some idea of who did this, _why_ they did this, how she could _un_do this.

She knew her best bet was the bullet shells littering the floor.

Stooping to grab one, she forced her fingers steady so she could examine the item suspended between them. The shredded remains of a thin, lead bullet casing. Special made. Military design.

Without another look at the overturned kitchen, Lois darted out the front door, leaving the dropped shell to clatter to the kitchen floor.

Her speedometer stayed above 100 MPH for the entirety of her mad trip to Metropolis. Her thoughts were racing even faster, wondering how she could have let this happen, what she could have done to keep him safe. The only thing she knew for sure was that the blame lay completely at her feet. The timing was too narrow for it to be anyone's fault but her own. Clark had lived under the radar his entire life. She launches a full-tilt Lois Lane investigation, and three weeks later the military takes him from his home?

_Hell, Lane_, she berated herself, tamping down the welling panic, _you didn't even _attempt_ to cover your tracks, did you?_

She had been so thrown by the sudden stop to her story, so wrapped up in the inexplicable connection she had with Clark, so relieved to finally, _finally_ have someone to talk to, to let talk to her, that she hadn't even thought about who might follow her bread crumbs. She'd blatantly searched the DP archives, talked candidly with potential witnesses, and enlisted aid in hacking a classified server. How did she not see this coming?

How the hell was she going to find Clark?

Five blocks from the Planet, a thought struck Lois.

_What if they come after me?_

She knew so much about him, could give them so many answers. They had obviously followed her to get him; what else might she unwittingly reveal?

Lois veered into a parking structure just off Main. She parked her car in a dim corner, populated by cars that rarely moved—company vans, service trucks, rich executives' spare cars. Maybe she could elude Clark's captors long enough figure out where they'd taken him. _Why_ they'd taken him. Maybe she could save him.

Snatching her purse from the passenger seat, her eyes happened upon the plain book she'd pushed from her mind. She clacked her teeth together, wondering what to do with it. She couldn't very well leave it out in the open, but it seemed just as foolhardy to bring it to the Planet. She toyed with the idea of destroying it, but she didn't think she could do it. She had no clue what the symbols meant, but who knew what kind of life-changing information would be lost forever?

She shoved the worn notebook in the dirty space beneath the driver's seat, hoping against hope that it'd be safer there than on her person. Then she jogged down the stairs and onto the street, dodging Saturday afternoon crowds as she struggled toward the DP.

Five minutes later she was standing in the dusty archive room, flipping through pages on the computer screen. She'd found articles on Clark, ones she'd happened upon before and a few she hadn't, but nothing that could help her solve the mystery of the man. If she wanted to find where the military had taken him, she needed to know the details of his past encounters with the higher ups—government facilities and university laboratories. Unfortunately, no article went further than "Local Boy Discovers Indian Caves." She couldn't even find a record of his life before his adoption.

Who didn't have a birth certificate? And why did the adoption papers have blank spaces instead of biological parents?

Frustrated, Lois abandoned the computer, grabbing at random a box of articles from October of '89.

She didn't even know what she was searching for, really. She just knew she had to do something, find something. Fix this, before it was too late.

"Lane."

She was so focused that she almost missed her editor's exasperated drawl.

"Why are you in here, Lane?" he asked, though she didn't so much as glance up. "I told you, if you come in on another Saturday, we'll have a Union revolt on our hands."

"Not now, Perry," she dismissed brusquely, sifting through files as fast as her fingers could fly. "I'm looking for a guy that probably could have literally fallen . . . from . . . the sky." Her fingers froze, mind racing, and in a blink she was off again, logic be damned. If space rock could give people special abilities, who's to say there weren't space _men_ roaming around with superpowers? "Hey Jer," she spoke into her cell phone, darting through the bustle of the newsroom to her corner office. "Give me everything you've got on extra terrestrials."

"Scoping out the competition, Lane?" It hadn't been so long since she worked at the Inquisitor that she wasn't friendly with her old desk mate.

"Please, Jer," Lois all but pleaded. It said a lot that Lois hadn't argued the point, even more that she actually _asked_, and Jerri knew it.

"Of course," she assented, all business. "E.T.s, huh? Well, this month I've got a probing and a pregnancy."

"Something verifiable," Lois hurried her.

"No editor spins?" Jerri chuckled. "Well, that narrows it down a bit. Hmm," she trailed off, presumably searching, and Lois slid into her chair, foot tapping impatiently.

"How about symbols?" Lois asked. She had wanted to avoid specifics, but time was not something readily available to her at the moment. "Crop circles, sky writing, etchings? Maybe in Smallville?"

"Is that a place?" Jerri asked. The sound of a clacking keyboard drifted through the phone, and Jerri made a noise of recognition. "Oh, that Smallville. Well, Lane, for somewhere practically bathing in paranormal activity, the alien sightings are basically non-existent. I've got a freaky symbol burned on a barn and ongoing research of some Native American cave drawings."

_Caves?_ The chances of this panning out were low. But suddenly her mind wouldn't erase the stark black headline "Local Boy Discovers Indian Caves."

"Send them to me," Lois instructed, already darting for the fax machine.

"I hope you let me in on this story, Lois," she could almost see Jerri shaking her head, "It must be quite the piece."

"Thanks, Jer," Lois breathed as soon as the machine started whirring. Jerri's office number rolled across the screen, and Lois waited impatiently for the paper to come through. "And Jer?" she asked as the fax printed, "Whatever you do, _please_ don't tell anyone about this."

"Like who?" the other woman wondered.

But the articles had finally come through, and Lois hung up, secure in the knowledge that if Jerri squealed, at least her position at the Inquisitor would cast doubt on her credibility. _Especially_ once aliens came into the mix.

Lois scanned the first picture heavy article, hurrying back across the bullpen. The Native American history was enough to make her blink. They thought they were _descended_ from aliens. It was almost enough to make her toss the paper, but one of the small pictures caught her eye.

She knew she had no way of verifying the legitimacy of the symbols. Or she had thought, at least. But there, almost off the corner of the image, was the exact S shaped symbol that had caught her eye in Clark's notebook.

As she sank into her chair, she read the legend more closely, eyebrow rising at the absolute improbability of it all. A man falling from the stars, who would save humanity? It sounded like someone had read too many Warrior Angel comics. But she couldn't bring herself to dismiss it out of hand. Super speed, super strength, fire from his eyes? It was too much to be a coincidence.

The next article gave her the confirmation she needed. Another symbol, one she wasn't sure she recognized, burned onto a barn in Smallville. Clark Kent's barn.

It was a high school publication, and Lois was nearly positive the alien spin was the result of a geek's obsession with Star Trek. But what if they'd hit the nail on the head? What if Clark Kent—superhuman, superheroic, more normal than the rest of them—had traveled galaxies to get here?

_It would certainly explain his constant state of fear_, she realized, aware on some level that she was right. _If the government found out about _that_ they would . . ._

"Shit," she said aloud, realizing for the first time the magnitude of what she'd done. He'd just wanted to live his life in peace. Really, he'd just wanted to _live_. And Lois, in her blind ambition, had led them right to his doorstep.

"Lois Lane." The stern voice drifted through the haze around her, and Lois started.

_How to get rid of the evidence?_ she wondered as the severity of _her_ situation hit her. Slowly, she pulled open the middle drawer of her desk, groping blindly for anything that might help.

"You're under arrest for fraternization with a threat to the U.S. government," the voice moved closer, edges hardening with every word.

Thank goodness she'd never fully kicked her smoking habit. Snagging her just-in-case lighter from the drawer, she lit the edge of the papers. Dropping them into the trashcan under her desk, Lois stood on still shaky legs to glare defiantly at her opposition.

"Hi, Daddy," she deadpanned, as though he were simply stopping by for a yearly check in.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the last bit of information turn to ash as they dragged her away.

Lois stared stony-faced at the fifth soldier to question her since she'd gotten there. She sat, hands tied, in a hard backed chair in a dank interrogation room. Two armed cadets flanked her, another guarded the door (more soldiers, she was sure, waited on the other side), and her father loomed silently in a dark corner of the room, observing the proceedings. She was positive the one-sided cross-examination was being taped on some unseen device.

"Lo," her father spoke for the first time all evening, and the officer (who had previously fallen silent, surely cursing the ban on physical violence) stiffened in surprise. Lois blinked at the unexpected concern in his rough voice, her eyes moistening against their will. Could Sam Lane be a father now, when she least expected it? When she most needed it? "You need to tell them what you know," he cajoled, in that same, unfamiliar tone.

Lois set her teeth against the General's contribution. It stung that her father would turn an affectionate nickname into a mockery. That he would attempt fatherly affection so that she would give up the one person she truly did care about? It made her sick.

"I don't know anything," she broke her self-imposed silence, voice cracking from pent up emotion. Analyzing the look of calm mistrust on her father's face, she adjusted her story, "I don't know anything you haven't already figured out."

He'd taken Clark from his home and found her at the Planet; she knew without a doubt that he'd confiscated the notes in her apartment. She only prayed he hadn't found her car, and the precious information it concealed.

"How long have you been in contact with the prisoner?" the interrogator demanded, spurred by the broken silence.

"How did you find him?" she asked bluntly, appealing to her father. She may as well get some answers while she was here. She knew it was her fault, but she wanted to know how.

"You led us straight to him," he answered gruffly, moving from the shadows. The officer in front of her retreated as he advanced, giving the General a clear path to his daughter. "You couldn't have expected your little foray into government databases to go unnoticed. I taught you better than that." Lois winced as her father continued, "No one imagined you'd find anything useful, but it's best to be prepared for every eventuality. And, well," he shook his head, "when you started making four trips a week to a town called _Smallville_, I thought it best to have you followed. For good reason, it seems," his voice hardened and his eyes flashed. "Look what you've gotten yourself into."

Lois couldn't tell if the edge in his features was military rigidity or parental unease. Either way, she was in a government holding cell, having led the best man she'd ever met to imprisonment and worse. She didn't care what the hell her father was going through.

"Why'd you help him, Lois?" his voice was low. She could barely hear him, though he was just across the table.

"I didn't," she answered numbly. If only she could make up for it now. There had to be _something _she could do for Clark.

"You didn't turn him over to the proper authorities," he insisted, leaning toward her.

"Why would I?" she asked, mouth twisting angrily.

Her father stared down at her as he had countless times, when she'd ignored curfew or failed to catch Lucy sneaking out. As though she'd broken the chain of command, and he was here to dole out punishment.

"That thing is a threat to _National Security_," he growled at her, jaw working as his teeth clenched and unclenched.

"He's never threatened a single person in his life," Lois informed her father, steel lining the words she somehow knew were true.

General Lane slammed his palms flat on the table. Lois didn't flinch.

"It's_ dangerous_," he hissed in her face.

"_Clark_," Lois spat back, suddenly wracked with putrid feelings toward her father, "is the most generous, self-sacrificial person I've ever met. You can't imprison him just because he has different abilities than you. It's _wrong_," she condemned mercilessly. General Lane straightened, and Lois made one last appeal, "It goes against everything this country stands for!"

But her father wasn't listening anymore. "He's gotten to her," he addressed the cadet by the door, motioning for the man to stand aside. The soldiers flanking her pulled Lois roughly to her feet. Her father turned to dismiss them, "take her to a holding cell," before pulling an about face and disappearing into the dark corridor.

More soldiers surrounded her. The men dragged Lois through the maze of dingy, blank walls, nudging her with their weapons whenever her feet defied them. And then they turned a corner, and not even their guns could make her move.

A window to a small cell broke the wall in front of her. Lois's eyes ate up the scene in front of her, though every second she watched made her stomach splinter with guilt and her heart clench with vicarious suffering.

Clark lay writhing on a gleaming steel table, thick shackles binding him to its surface. Three vile men, military insignia adorning their lab coats, moved around him, probing his skin, making curious incisions, and scribbling notes on thick official parchment.

The entire room glowed green.

"What are they doing?" Lois asked, turning to her captors in desperation. "How-" she began, stuttering to a stop. "You can't do this!" she cried, launching herself toward the door. "Stop it!"

"Stand down!" one soldier ordered, as three more descended on her.

Lois balked, kicking and punching as she attempted to get to Clark, to soothe the anguish from his face, to tell him it was all going to be okay. To tell him she was _so, so sorry_ for putting him through this.

"Contain the prisoner," "cease—," "_stand down!_" The words garbled in her ears, wouldn't make sense in her brain.

She had to get to Clark.

A soldier slammed her from behind, and Lois hit the door hard. She struggled to keep her eyes forward. Had she looked away, she never would have seen Clark's head loll slowly to the side, eyes fluttering open to meet hers.

The look of pure betrayal pierced her soul before his eyes dragged closed. The military men hauled her away.

"Clark!" she screamed uselessly as the needle punctured her skin and she faded into blackness. _Clark_, was the hoarse whisper that pulled her into frenzied dreams.

**VNVNVNVNVNVNVNVNVNV**

Thanks for reading. Comments make me happy; please review!


	3. The Heart of the Matter

Well, here it is! The very last chapter. Thanks for reading, everyone!

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Really. I promise.**

**III.**

Lois stared aimlessly at the blank walls as she had everyday for the last two weeks. They _weren't_ blank, though—not to her. Clark's anguished blue eyes, green with reflected weakness, stared back at her wherever she looked. Closing her eyelids was worse. At least when her eyes were open she could hope they hadn't murdered him yet, in their vile attempt to root out the truth. The moment she tried to sleep, her mind went mad with horrifying possibilities.

She wondered how long until they turned to her with violent means. She imagined her father's presence kept the torture in their minds at bay, but who knew how long that would last. Honestly, she was almost hoping someone would try something, just so she could have an outlet for her anxiety. At least if she was withstanding torture she would know she was doing _something_ to keep Clark safe.

Her feet tapped anxious rhythms on the floor, but she could do nothing to ease her helplessness. Within a week of her imprisonment she'd memorized every corner—every crack—in the tiny cell. Three paces along each wall. One third of the room taken by a simple, rickety cot. Four bars across the window of the heavy metal door.

She could see a few feet of the hall in either direction, but nothing more interesting than the same dull walls that graced her cell. A soldier sat outside the door on an old foldaway chair, gun resting across his right shoulder.

Guard change occurred every two hours, a well-oiled routine. They never spoke to her, nor moved except to stand or sit when soldiers were replaced. Once a day, usually in the morning when her mind was groggy from restless sleep, they interrogated her. It never lasted long, and the officers were growing more frustrated at each failure.

Her escape plan was as unformed as it had been fourteen days ago.

Lois didn't like admitting defeat. She told herself it was a mild setback, but her faith was wavering.

_Just cause_, she scoffed in her head. If she ever got out of this place, she was going to rip the legal system to shreds.

At first she'd taunted the guards—once her pleas to see Clark had ceased and her attempts to discover more information were staunchly ignored—but it only made her feel more alone. Despite the horrors she knew Clark was confronting, she selfishly wished his holding cell were near hers. At least then they could comfort each other. At least he'd know she never meant for this to happen.

Footfalls echoed down the long hallway, their hollow rhythm the only clock Lois had.

"Soldier, you're relieved," stated an unfamiliar voice.

Lois watched the soldiers perform their motions through the bars; the first soldier did an about-face, and she counted until his steps faded. Her eyes slid across the shadowed face of the new soldier, and she waited with disinterest for him to sit so she could dismiss him again.

An M16 pushed through the bars, and Lois blinked.

"In the corner, hands where I can see them," the man ordered, fighting to keep his tone level. It was the most vocal inflection she'd heard since her father disappeared. He'd tried to coax information out of her, but after three days of constant stonewalling, he strode down the corridor and never reappeared. She suspected he was amassing a new strategy.

Curious, Lois scooted back on the bed, fingers brushing the metal food tray she'd stowed between the mattress and the wall before obediently resting her hands flat on the scratchy blanket.

The soldier entered the room and closed the door behind him.

_Mistake number one_, Lois noted, hope welling despite the fear curling her stomach. He had nothing good planned, she knew. Still, no one had deviated from his orders yet. She'd almost started thinking she'd never get a chance to escape.

He raised his gun in her direction; not a threat, just a precaution. Lois kept herself still.

"Tell me what you know," the man hissed, low enough to avoid outside detection. Lois suspected they had her cell wired. She wondered if the monitoring technician was in on this.

"What?" Lois asked bluntly, staring up at him. Her fingertips curled into the blanket and straightened again.

His nose twitched with anger and disgust.

"About that _thing_," he barked, as if she should know.

_Clark_, she corrected in her head.

She'd realized the soldiers were becoming less and less willing to recognize Clark as a legitimate human being. Of course, she suspected he wasn't, but that didn't make him any less of a person. How much had they discovered through those barbaric lab tests?

"You're in league with it," the soldier accused, unaware of her frustration in the face of his own. The anger itself wasn't surprising, but his complete abandoning of the system had Lois's mind racing. What had happened to make him snap? Lois knew each soldier was carefully selected for this project. Something must have gone terribly wrong. It was the only viable answer. "What did it tell you?" he demanded, regaining control of his tone.

Lois gritted her teeth. After weeks, the "it" still made her skin crawl.

When she didn't respond, he moved closer, looming over her. "What is it about that thing that would make you betray your country?" he asked, voice rough with appalled curiosity. "How is he worth betraying your world?"

_He._

Suddenly, Lois had an ally, completely against his will.

"Why is he worth betraying your constitution?" Lois returned, achieving a level of calm she didn't think possible. The soldier's face curled in disgust, and Lois swallowed back her anger, her fear. "You seized him without cause, held him without accusing him, and _tortured_ him without purpose. Have you even _read_ the document you're basing your career on?"

"Times of war and public danger," the soldier recited, standing rigid.

"Right," Lois accepted, fighting to keep the sarcasm from her tone. Despite herself, she continued, "Because he was putting _so_ many citizens at risk with those cows of his."

"I might have expected you to understand, Miss Lane, but clearly neither you nor your father can see what needs to be done."

Lois closed her eyes, fighting the medley of emotion that would only get in the way. _"If you lose your cool, you lose control,"_ the General lectured in her memory. It was the only help he'd give her now.

"Where is it?" he demanded. The force of his hand jerking her arm pulled her eyes open. Lois gritted her teeth against the bruising grip, staring defiantly into his face. "Has it contacted you?" he shook her, and her determination bled into confusion and hope.

"What?" her voice cracked, and she winced against the sound. He probably thought she was reacting to the other hand that reached up to grab her, letting his gun fall uselessly to his side.

The opportunity was there, but Lois couldn't take it.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, struggling to her knees on the hard mattress.

"It escaped over an hour ago," he answered almost automatically, fear lacing the words.

_Don't_, she commanded herself, though she couldn't help the fluttering feeling drifting through every inch of her body.

"You don't have clearance to know that," she told him, face set.

"I heard them," his voice was edged with tightly controlled hysteria. "And I know it got to you. Now tell me where it is!"

Lois took a careful breath before replying, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the easiest person to reach right now."

"It can do things!" the soldier cried. He snapped his jaw shut, eyes darting, and continued harshly, "_You know it can_."

"I don't know anything," Lois reiterated the only thing she'd told anyone since she'd been taken. Apparently, it was too much for him.

"Don't give me that bullshit!" he growled, shoving her against the wall.

Breath left her in a gasp, and when the oxygen rushed back in, her body began to throb. He let her sink to the bed, shoulders still pressed against the wall, and moved in closer.

"I don't care if you're Sam Lane's daughter," he threatened. "I'll get the information any way I can."

His hand moved from her left shoulder, inching toward his weapon, and Lois made her move. Her fingers darted behind the bed, and before he could so much as grip the gun she had swung the tray against his temple.

"Bitch," he growled, staggering back, then lunging forward.

Lois was ready for him. Putting Daddy's boot camp to good use, she rammed her knee into the pressure point in his leg, sending him to his knees. Then she jammed the heel of her foot into his shoulder, disabling his weapon arm for a few precious seconds. She took the opportunity to grab the gun, its strap still attached to his shoulder, and shoot the bolt from the door. She was out of her cell and sprinting down the hall before he had recovered.

"Prisoner escaped! Prisoner escaped!" his booming voice, strained from her attack, echoed after her. Lois kept running, the feeling of success growing as his voice grew faint behind her.

Rounding a corner, she ran straight into a wall of soldiers, in formation and guns at the ready. With barely a thought Lois kicked off the wall, spinning back the way she'd come, praying for some other escape. But news of her breakout had already reached those in command. A second troupe advanced down the long hall, an ominous backdrop to the angry, limping soldier standing in front of the open door she'd just escaped.

She turned again—again—again—rounding back and forth like a trapped animal. Desperately, her fingers slid across walls, her eyes tracing the ceiling for vents, frantic for any way to escape. She was met with nothing.

Angry and resigned, Lois turned back to face the long hallway. Limping toward her, the soldier she'd incapacitated raised his gun. With a pinch of fear, Lois suddenly realized he wasn't content to simply capture her.

He'd call it self-defense, surely. With the knot on his head and his backup still half a corridor away, the excuse might hold. The mad glint in his eye told her he was willing to take the risk.

_Clark, I'm so sorry_, she thought as she closed her eyes. She heard the bang, and the breath rushed from her body.

It took her a moment to realize her body was unpunctured. Another half-second, and she recognized the sturdy arms wrapped around her. She opened her eyes, sure she was deluding herself, and felt her feet leave the ground. Her stomach was flipping, the air was whipping around her, and the dark prison and its menacing guards disappeared.

Just as quickly as the world had blurred away, it resolved into a barren wilderness. The sickly trees and dusty earth told her they weren't in Kansas anymore. Her mind was racing, chaotic; the thought didn't even form into a quip.

Lois resisted stiffly as Clark slipped her back on her own two feet and took a step back, unwilling to let him go. She kept her hands wrapped around his forearms, stepping with him despite herself. Clark said nothing, but the careful stance of his posture told her he was probably about to bolt.

"You're okay," she breathed anyway, fingers tightening on his arms, reassuring herself that he was _here_ and _whole_. "How are you okay?" The question fumbled from her lips almost before she'd finished voicing her relief.

Clark's eyes flashed; pain, resentment, and expectation tossed back and forth in the green-grey depths. His face stayed resolutely blank.

"Are you okay?" he asked her levelly, eyes scanning her frame.

Despite herself, Lois laughed. It wasn't loud or rich, but it was genuine.

"You already know, don't you?" she asked, voice wavering more than she'd like. She was having trouble believing that after two weeks of nothing but her own terrible imagination, Clark Kent was standing before her, x-raying her like it was the most natural thing in the world. For him, she mused, it was. "Why ask?"

He nodded briefly, and Lois's moment of levity disappeared. His face was so inexpressive; his eyes held none of their usual warmth. How much torture had he withstood while she was twiddling her thumbs in a moderately sized cell?

"Besides," she continued, taking a deep breath and staring up into his face. "The real question is: are _you_ okay?"

"Fine," he answered shortly. The curt tone was bruising, but Lois couldn't blame him. She was half surprised he was still here letting her hold him; letting her explain.

The realization that he was still there, listening, after everything she had put him through made every scrap of guilt and horror she harbored rush in on her.

"Clark, I am _so_ sorry," she said earnestly. She gripped him more tightly, as if the meager force of her muscles could reinforce the strength of her words. Tears were leaking into her eyes, but she was too intent to be ashamed. "This was all my fault," she confessed, hating the way his eyes hardened at the admission. "I was careless, and naïve, and stupid. But I _never_ imagined they'd find you." Even observing every flicker of his face, she didn't know if he believed her. She probably wouldn't, in his position. "If I'd even suspected," she continued anyway, needing him to know despite her uncertainty, "I'd have done _anything_ to keep you safe."

Clark's face remained impassive. His eyes tightened, and she couldn't read them anymore. Slowly, he raised his hands to her elbows and slid her hands from his arms. Lois's throat tightened, but she didn't protest.

He took a step back. That was okay. It made sense for him to want some distance. It was nothing she didn't deserve.

The seconds passed, and Lois waited for him to move. He had ample reasons to zip away, and no reason at all to stay. So why was he still there?

Still he said nothing, just continued to stare at her as if she were part of the barren landscape.

"How did you escape?" Lois asked, a little hoarsely despite her attempt at keeping a level tone. As much as she wanted to let him work through his thoughts, the silence was getting to her.

Once the question was out, she found she was itching to know the answer. It hadn't seemed important earlier, but now she _needed_ to know. She needed something concrete to hold onto, in case he decided she wasn't worth her words. In case he was gone before she realized it.

He blinked, eyes drifting in and out of focus as he registered her question, struggling with an answer. He hesitated, and when his eyes raked across her face the careful detachment was missing. Lois held her breath and willed him to speak.

"One of the doctors," he answered simply, but his voice was rough with suppressed gratitude.

Lois's eyes slid closed, and she blessed the faceless doctor's humanity. When she opened her eyes, she found Clark watching her. She met his gaze, unsure of what he was looking for and desperately hoping he would find it.

He averted his eyes, shifted his feet so he wasn't facing her quite so directly, and continued.

"They found out about the kryptonite."

He glanced at her briefly, intent but not accusing, wondering how much she knew. The blank confusion on her face convinced him in a second, and he explained with barely a pause, "The meteor rocks."

"Were they . . . studying the mutation?" she asked, a little hesitant. She wasn't sure whether his abilities came from the meteor rock or his unique heritage—if, in fact, she were right about it—and she wasn't sure she should be asking. A few weeks of close friendship wasn't the most solid foundation for trust, especially given the following fifteen days. She didn't want him to suddenly decide she wasn't worth the explanation.

"I'm . . . well . . ." for a moment, he struggled with his thoughts, "allergic, I guess. To the meteor rock. Its properties react negatively with my chemical makeup." He stopped again, and Lois realized he had all but admitted he wasn't the same as her. He took a deep breath and said bluntly, "Enough kryptonite can kill me."

Her heart jolted, and the image that had haunted her captivity sprung up; Clark's face became pale and contorted before her eyes. Lois's mouth twisted at the memory. "They were torturing you," she acknowledged bleakly.

"Studying me," he corrected, just as bleakly, "and neutralizing the threat."

By the way he was speaking, Lois realized he wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't of the same mindset. It hurt, however little she blamed him. Still, the fact that he was confiding at all encouraged her.

"The longer I'm exposed the weaker I get," he continued in a detached, lecturing tone. "A few days' exposure won't do any lasting damage, but enough kryptonite . . . for so long . . ." he shuddered. "They didn't want me dying," he explained, adding darkly, "not yet anyway."

For a moment, the look in Clark's eyes terrified her. She suddenly understood that this was what he'd been fighting his whole life. An entire life of hiding on the farm, countless people he'd pushed away . . . each opportunity he'd missed was because of the looming possibility of what he'd just undergone.

The anger faded from his eyes, and Clark forced his tone back to indifference, "So Dr. Hamilton convinced them to lessen the amount of kryptonite in my cell."

Lois took a deep, steadying breath. "You amassed your strength," she guessed.

"A little," he agreed. "Enough."

Needing something to do, Lois crossed her arms and leaned back against a sickly tree that nearly bent under her weight. She refused to let the guilt consume her, sure it would do nothing to help. Still. . . .

She couldn't help picturing Clark, lying there in agony, fighting to gather resolve through the pain. Praying for a way out and grateful for any small relief.

"Emil did what he could," Clark credited, gratitude seeping back into his tone. "After that first week," he continued, pacing several strides across the dusty ground, "the doctors worked in pairs. This morning, Dr. Hamilton discovered a unique antibody in my blood. He sent the other scientist for backup and smashed the sample."

Lois's gaze jerked up. Even knowing this Dr. Hamilton was a decent, moral person, she had a hard time believing he'd help Clark so brazenly, at such high personal risk.

"That place was swarming with guards," she argued, dropping her arms to her sides and tapping her fingers in agitation. His pacing was making her antsy. "And from what I saw, they were packing the green stuff."

"He managed to smuggle me into a supply closet," Clark's voice would have been wry if it weren't so businesslike. "The guards usually stayed outside, unless there was a problem. But Dr. Hamilton didn't know how to get me out of the lab, and he was starting to get worried we'd get caught. So he raised the alarm."

Lois raised an eyebrow, impressed. It was ballsy, she had to admit. It didn't surprise her that the guards had believed the doctor; a large part of why they'd treated Clark so despicably was because they truly believed he was capable of anything, including escaping a fortified base in the blink of an eye. Still, the chances of getting caught—of getting Clark recaptured or killed and the doctor arrested for treason—were astronomically high. She didn't know if she'd have risked it.

"Two guards stayed," Clark continued as she gathered her thoughts. "Emil must have used some gas or something, because they were unconscious by the time I saw them. Then there was a disturbance in the east wing. That was you, I guess," he paused to look at her, the corners of his mouth not quite turning upward. "It gave Dr. Hamilton a chance to sneak me past the patrols and through a locked corridor."

From the long, winding hallways she had seen, it was no stretch to imagine an old sealed-off wing.

"It was easy after that," he finished, tension visibly lessening across his shoulders. "The corridor must've been abandoned years ago. No guards," he expounded, pausing to add a relieved, "No kryptonite."

"Why did you come back for me?" Lois finally asked the question she'd been avoiding, the one she most needed answered.

Abruptly, Clark stopped pacing. It was as if the question hadn't even crossed his mind.

"Dr. Hamilton told me," he explained slowly, as if he were willing his words to take. "He said they were keeping you, that you hadn't. . . ."

_Given you up_, Lois finished in her head, hearing the hollowness in his voice. _And you didn't believe him_, she realized in the same instant. _Not really._

"And?" she prompted, unsatisfied.

"And," he repeated, an admission. He pursed his lips, considering. Then his foot inched forward, and he was standing right in front of her. ". . . and I couldn't leave you."

Suddenly, Lois didn't know what to do with herself. Her blood grew warm, invading her face, rushing down her shoulders to her fingertips and clogging her heart. Her feet tapped in her dirty boots. _Fight or flight?_

On impulse she pushed off the tree, bringing her body within inches of his. Barely moving, feeling foolish, she slid forward and slipped her arms around him. He stiffened, but Lois simply pressed her cheek against his chest and held on tight.

"I don't know what I would have done," she whispered the confession, "if anything had happened to you."

For the briefest of seconds, his arms tightened around her. She could almost hear his heartbeat, thudding in time with hers.

She felt him nod into her hair, and his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her body from his. Lois looked up at him, confused and hurt, face set impassively.

Clark seemed to steel himself, then looked down at her. "We should probably find somewhere a little safer," he suggested.

Somehow, the sentence held more weight than it should. Lois had the impression that something colossal was about to happen. Something that would change her life. Something that might change Clark's.

_It's a simple question, Lane_, she tried to convince herself. Still, she didn't speak for a long time, watching the anticipation and anxiety swirl in his eyes.

Biting her lip, Lois nodded.

The smile he shot her was relieved and a little nervous, but finally—finally—the familiar warmth caught the corners of his lips and pulled her own into a soft smile.

He gathered her into his arms with extra care and, as she slid her fingers along his shoulders to hook together behind his neck, he shot into the air.

If she'd thought her heart had dropped when he supersped, it was nothing compared to this. The ground was rushing away from them, the clouds were swirling around them, and all Lois could do was stare at him in wonder.

"Cowboy," she sighed when her breath stopped coming in gasps, "take me away." Only half of her meant the comment as satiric; she hoped he didn't notice. If not for his hearing, the words would have been lost over the Atlantic, which they now seemed to be traversing.

"Dixie Chicks?" he asked, eyes a little lighter than they had been.

"Hey," Lois protested, speech faint from the height and the ease of his teasing. She could feel the familiar comfort drift back into their relationship, and her whole body seemed weighted with happiness. "You try coming up with a witty retort to someone sweeping you off your feet and launching you into space. Not all of us are used to being airborne, you know," she deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

"It's easy to get used to," he assured her easily.

Lois hadn't realized her heartbeat had settled enough for it to skip. She didn't know if Clark had realized the implication of his words—that flying was something _she_ could get used to—but she cherished the sentiment all the same.

"You better not set me free into the wild blue," she warned sternly, trying to tamp down her overwhelming, bubbling contentment. "I don't need to be any closer to heaven, thank you very much."

He didn't chuckle, but his lips curled nearly into a full grin. Then they were dropping, and Lois almost shrieked. She glared at him, sure he had done it on purpose.

"We're here," he explained, amusement overriding his nerves.

Lois glanced down in time to see white in every direction, and then the sky disappeared and Clark's feet touched the ground.

She held him for only a moment before curiosity overcame her and she climbed down onto her feet. Clark watched as she slowly walked around, taking in her surroundings.

"What is this place?" she breathed, blinking into the bright haze. The powder began to settle around her, shapes becoming smooth and sharp, like glittering glass sculptures on cushions of snow.

"My Fortress of Solitude," he told her. Her head whipped around, and a soft, wry smile graced his lips as she widened her eyes at him. "My _real_ Fortress of Solitude," he said warmly. Then he chuckled. "You have no idea how shocked I was when you said that about my loft."

"Please," Lois scoffed halfheartedly. "I'm very perceptive," she told him. Then, with a teasing smile, "And you are not that hard to read."

"I'll keep that in mind," he nudged her shoulder. She smiled at him a moment more before turning to fully analyze the palace around her.

He watched as she eyed her surroundings, taking in the glimmering ice crystals, the looming fortress walls, and the flurries of snow drifting around them. Her gaze drifted back to him, and her eyes raked up and down his figure.

"I think I could _definitely_ get lost with you for a while," she admitted, biting the corner of her lip.

After everything she'd put him through, he deserved a safe haven. And she certainly intended to prove to him just how wonderful he really was. Lois Lane didn't fall for just anybody; she didn't think he grasped how truly enrapturing she found him.

"For few weeks, at least," she qualified. Her heart ached as she watched his face fall, and she faced him squarely. "Then _we_'re heading back to the city."

"We?" Clark asked, as if that were the last word he'd ever expected her to say. Then the sentiment struck him, and he frowned. "Lois, we can't-"

"We can and we will, Clark," she interjected before he could get going. Given the chance, he'd probably worry himself into a coma. "There's a story here, and we're not going to let it slip away." For a split second, fear flashed across his features. In that moment, Lois swore she wouldn't rest until he could trust her with every bit of his being. Then the fear was gone, melting back into an inquisitive quirk of his brow. Lois smiled, a plan forming in her head, "The government is undermining the rights of its people, and I intend to see them exposed."

"But, Lois," Clark shook his head, "I'm _not_ a legal citizen." He took a deep breath, and for the first time admitted to her face, "I'm not even _human_."

Lois brushed her fingers against his arm, giving him a reassuring smile. Wordlessly, he brought his hand to hers and curled his fingers around her.

"That doesn't mean they can treat you like a monster," she argued. "People can trust you. The government needs to recognize that," she insisted softly.

His intent gaze and the soft admiration in his eyes, tempered with doubts he'd had his whole life, left her breathless. Lois swallowed thickly, unable to break his stare even as her mind raced for something to free her. She would kiss him in a moment, she knew; and despite the fact that she was surely half in love with him already, she knew it just wasn't the time.

An idea struck her, and with a sigh of mingled relief and inspiration she was off again, dropping his arm so she could pace around the snow. He let her hand slide past his wrist, then caught her fingers back between his.

Lois glanced down at their intertwined fingers, then smiled brilliantly at him. "Say, Clark?" she inquired innocently. "How do you feel about a career in journalism?" He raised one brow, and she couldn't help the devious curve of her mouth as she continued, "I know a fine reporter who's in the market for a partner."

**END**

And yep, that really is the end. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it! It's been lots of fun. I won't promise anything else for now, because I don't have anything in the works at the moment. But both an epilogue and a sequel are kinda rolling around in my head, so we'll see where that goes. I am planning on doing one of the two, eventually. But please don't hold your breath.

Let me know what you thought! You guys are awesome!


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